On August 2 the Lithuanian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Arturas Zhurauskas and Lithuania's Ambassador to Hungary, Renatas Juska, resigned, according to the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry.
"The diplomat understands that the current situation makes it difficult to properly continue the work in an existing position, » reads the information of the Foreign Ministry.
"I regard it as a worthy step. It is clear that they expect from diplomats impeccable standards of morality and ethics," said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lynas Linkevičius.
The conversations of Zhurauskas, Juska, as well as the Deputy Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Zenonas Kumetaytis, and an employee of the Foreign Ministry, Gediminas Kasputis, were placed on the Internet.
According to the website Delfi.lt, audio records of conversations between Lithuanian diplomats appeared on YouTube. They talked about the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Renatas Juska was asking the interlocutor, the deputy head of the Foreign Ministry, Zenonas Kumetaytis, whom he supports in this confrontation? The interviewee said: "If to look at the issue through the prism of Russia, one should ask which of these countries is more pro-Russian, and who is not. From the religious and humanistic position, of course the Armenians are closer to Russia, even though they are rotten. "
Juska, in turn, noted that he sympathizes with the Armenians, because "they are Christians, victims of Stalin's regime, who changed the territory of their country as well as Lithuanian territory."
Arturas Zhurauskas (the Ambassador to Azerbaijan) was involved in another discussion concerning the problems in doing business in Turkmenistan. He talked with a Lithuanian businessman. Interviews were conducted in the Lithuanian language, but the records were subtitled in English.
It is not known whom the telephone conversation was tapped by and posted on Youtube. The Lithuanian side believes that this is the affair of the Russian intelligence services, who wants to discredit the EU in the eyes of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which seek rapprochement with the European Union.-02D-
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